With accurate time knowledge as a basis, surprisingly large results can
be obtained under any scheme of management from day work up; there is no
question that even ordinary day work resting upon this foundation will
give greater satisfaction than any of the systems in common use,
standing as they do upon soldiering as a basis.
To many of the readers of this book both the fundamental objects to be
aimed at, namely, high wages with low labor cost, and the means
advocated by the writer for attaining this end; namely, accurate time
study, will appear so theoretical and so far outside of the range of
their personal observation and experience that it would seem desirable,
before proceeding farther, to give a brief illustration of what has been
accomplished in this line.
The writer chooses from among a large variety of trades to which these
principles have been applied, the yard labor handling raw materials in
the works of the Bethlehem Steel Company at South Bethlehem, Pa., not
because the results attained there have been greater than in many other
instances, but because the case is so elementary that the results are
evidently due to no other cause than thorough time study as a basis,
followed by the application of a few simple principles with which all of
us are familiar.
In almost all of the other more complicated cases the large increase in
output is due partly to the actual physical changes, either in the
machines or small tools and appliances, which a preliminary time study
almost always shows to be necessary, so that for purposes of
illustration the simple case chosen is the better, although the gain
made in the more complicated cases is none the less legitimately due to
the system.
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